Jeff and I arrived home from our week in Nicaragua at 2:00am on Monday morning and didn’t wake up until noon. At about ten in the morning, I woke up bleary-eyed and drooling with Gracie sprawled across my chest, pinning me down with her shocking ability to multiply her body weight to keep me from disturbing her comfy perch. She opened one lazy eye at me and then went back to snoring. I looked over at Jeff and asked, “Wear our pajamas to work day?”
He grunted and nodded. And then we fell back asleep.
Eventually we pulled ourselves out of bed and began catching up on life and work. It’s been a chill week physically – just sitting at our desks and knocking away at our list of to-dos interrupted by groceries, unpacking, stacks of mail, laundry, and leftover Modern Family episodes. I love working from home – it let’s us ease back into life instead of slamming into busy work days again.
To round out our posts on Nicaragua, I thought I’d share a few more of my favorite images from our week. It was nice to stretch our inner-photojournalists for this project as we were given free reign to tell the story of the city of Matagalpa as we felt. So Jeff went out one early morning with the video guy, Stephen, to shoot the sun rising over the surrounding mountains and ended up at a local coffee roaster, where they happened to be roasting cocoa beans that morning. Apparently roasting cocoa bean smells like heaven.
They interviewed the owner, and I love this portrait that Jeff captured.
Then they stopped in at a shoe repairman’s shop. My hubby rocks at storytelling.
The next day all of us went out to a local village that was receiving a brand new automated well pump system from the non-profit we were traveling with. A little bit down the road, we found a small barrio with some older manual pumps. We learned that spending just a few minutes at the well meant that we could meet a small but diverse cross-section of the community coming to fill their buckets with their daily water.
One gentleman got a kick out of letting Jeff give it a try too.
Watching the folks carry the water back to their homes was the most interesting part.
Further down the road, we found an even more rudimentary well, the kind that I was shocked was still in everyday use. Yes, I felt a pang of guilt stepping into my shower here at home… but seriously, what a crazy experience to capture everyday life that is so dramatically different.
We’re so honored to work for the kind of amazing non-profits that we’ve gotten to partner with in the last few years. I know that many of you out there have had similar experiences of traveling to these parts of the world and seeing a much different way of life. I’d love to hear the places and the stories in the comments – you can either talk about a full story or just leave the name of a country, city, and neighborhood that has affected you deeply. This will be so fun!
Hugs,
Erin
